Purchase One Heavy-Duty CNG Vehicle

The City of Santa Clarita (City) works to protect the water quality in the Santa Clara River by its compliance with a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for the storm drain system. In order to meet the maintenance and water quality needs of the storm drain system, City staff needed a larger capacity Vactor truck. The existing equipment was out-dated and was too small and inefficient for most of the maintenance work. As a result, the City had to contract with an outside contractor that had larger Vactor equipment at a substantial cost. It became apparent with the increased maintenance load that contracting the work became less cost effective than purchasing a larger Vactor truck. The Citys Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Policy established that when replacing vehicles, regular diesel shall be phased out and replaced with less polluting alternatives such as low sulfur or bio-diesel, gasoline, compressed natural gas, biobased fuels, hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells and electric batteries. In addition, City staff became aware that the City of Ontario had already bid and purchased a compressed natural gas (CNG) Vactor truck. The bid included a piggyback clause so the City of Santa Clarita could purchase the vehicle without going back out to bid and could qualify under the Mobile Source Reduction Committee (MSRC) grant program to offset some of the high costs of the Vactor truck. The City Council approved the purchase, pending the grant award. The maintenance of this new Vactor truck required the retrofit of our existing maintenance bay facilities. The Vactor truck is the most expensive state-of-the-art piece of equipment ever purchased by the City. However, even though this piece of equipment was very expensive, it helps fulfill the mission of the storm water quality program, advances clean air in the Santa Clarita Valley, and helps encourage the markets for these types of vehicles.